“The Rhapsody Project started because we were teaching music in Seattle and we were wanting to find a way to better educate our our students about American music.”
Joe Seamons, Musician and Co-Founder of the Rhapsody Project
Introducing the Rhapsody Project
The Rhapsody Project (TRP) is a Seattle-based organization and “multi-generational community that celebrates music and heritage through an anti-racist lens”. In addition to their Seattle location, the group has a Richmond Virginia Chapter organized by professional musician Justin Golden. One goal of the Richmond, Virginia chapter is to pave the way for other organizers to “develop their own chapters of tRp all over the place!”
Three members of TRP were interviewed for this resource: the organization’s co-founder, Joe Seamons, and Jed Criologo and Liana Green who are both members of the TRP structural leadership team
Meet Three Members of TRP
Listen to their brief audio recording about The Rhapsody Project. A transcription of their audio is included in the drop-down menu below.
Transcriptions
Reflection Activity
The interviews above are of course just a very small portion of Liana, Jed, and Joe’s narratives, but it is both interesting and powerful to listen to their reflections. Joe is from a small town in Rainier, Oregon and moved to Seattle because of the local music community. Liana was a music teacher and took a music course while on sabbatical. That class, Face the Music, is part of what inspired Liana to jump ship and join TRP. Jed was contending with being a third culture person and working as a musician.
In the book, Writing for Change, An Advanced ELA Resource by Inés Poblet (available as an OER), Poblet describe the importance of unpacking our personal narratives if we want to be fully present in the work of of anti-racist teaching practices. Poblet states that her “hope is that we, as educators, never stop practicing this awareness, and that the inner work brings us to action in all facets of our lives, in our respective spheres of power and in our experiences of oppression.” The following activity is a warm-up exercise based on a suggested activity Poblet’s that you may find helpful as your reflect on your own stories.
Reflection Activity
Reflect on the following questions and prompts to begin thinking about the parts of your story and identity.
- What is your story about how you became a teacher? If you are not a teacher then what is your interest in education and what brings you here?
- Are there key parts of your identity which come to mind as being important to your story?
- Have you come across the term “intersectionality”? What do you know about the term?
- Consider that we all have an identify and we all have various degrees of intersectionality.
- Review the resources listed below. As you do so, consider the following guiding question: How can learning more about intersectionality and identity support your own work as a teacher?
Resources:
- Resource 1: Video: What is Intersectionality?
- Resource 2: Article: Teaching at the Intersections
